Rhetoric and Democracy in the Age of the Internet
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Rhetoric and Democracy in the Age of the Internet |
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FEATURED SPEAKERS AND PANELISTS
(listed in alphabetical order)
KIM ALEXANDER
Kim Alexander is president and founder of the California Voter Foundation (CVF), a nonprofit,
nonpartisan organization she started in 1994 to advance new technologies to improve democracy.
She is the designer and editor of CVF's Webby award-winning web site, www.calvoter.org
, and has led pioneering efforts to develop the Internet into a tool for improving voter education,
civic participation and campaign finance disclosure. Under Alexander's leadership, CVF has published the California Online Voter Guide for every
statewide election since 1994. Every election, traffic to the calvoter.org web site has doubled since then, peaking at 300,000 visits over a six-week
period during the November 2000 election. Alexander has also been at the forefront of successful efforts to mandate electronic filing and Internet
disclosure of California campaign finance records, and in 1995 created the world's first real-time online campaign finance database. Alexander served
on California's Internet Voting Task Force, and is one of the nation's leading experts on voting technology. She is a 1988 graduate of the
University of California, Santa Barbara, with degrees in political science and philosophy.
CARL BERNSTEIN
In the early 1970’s, Carl Bernstein and
Bob Woodward broke the Watergate story for the Washington Post and set the
standard for modern investigative reporting. Their investigations into the
scandal that brought down the Nixon administration were recounted in two of the
biggest selling books of the decade: All the President’s Men (also a
movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) and The Final Days.
Since then, in books, magazine articles, television reporting and commentary,
Bernstein has continued to build on the theme he and Woodward first explored
during the Nixon years—the use and abuse of power: Political power, Media
power, Financial power, and Spiritual power. His latest best-selling book,
published in 1996, is the acclaimed papal biography John Paul II and the
History of Our Time, which revealed the Pope’s definitive role in the fall
of communism. He is also a contributing editor of Vanity Fair, where his
profiles have focused on such diverse leaders as superlobbysit Tom Boggs (in an
investigation of the money culture of Washington) and most recently produced for
the final issue of the century, a provocative account of the life and politics
of Senator John McCain. During the political year 2000, Bernstein was
regularly seen on TV as a commentator on Politics 2000. His commentaries took
you behind the scenes in the Presidential campaign and looked at what the
American people were trying to tell their hard-headed politicians, and the
upheaval that portended. In 2001, Knopf will publish Bernstein’s
monumental biography of the most fascinating woman in politics today, Hillary
Rodham Clinton, on which he began work in 1999. Carl Bernstein lives in
New York City, was most recently executive Vice president and executive editor
of Voter.com until its demise.
MICHAEL CORNFIELD
Michael Cornfield is Associate Research Professor at the Graduate School of Political Management of the George Washington University.
In 1998 he became Research Director for the Democracy Online Project, a two-year inquiry into
the state of American politics on the Internet, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts (for project-related writings, see
www.democracyonline.org). Cornfield writes a
monthly column, "The Online Campaigner," for Campaigns and Elections magazine, the leading trade publication for professional
politicians. He also writes an occasional column, "Campaign on the Net," for political science professors and their students in American government
classes, which may be found at www.wwnorton.com/e-2000/campaign.htm
. He has lectured at colleges, universities, and association conventions throughout
the United States and (via satellite) the world, and he has written on media and politics for a variety of academic and general publications, including
The Wilson Quarterly, The Washington Monthly, the Journal of
Communication, Political Communication, The Political Standard,
Communication Booknotes Quarterly, and the National Civic Review.
A professor at George Washington University since 1994, Cornfield teaches the core course on strategy and
message development, and a course on politics and the new media. Cornfield
received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.
JUSTIN DANGEL
Justin Dangel has several years of
experience with start-up business and in public interest work. As the Founder
and CEO of Voter.com, Mr. Dangel created the most popular independent political
channel on the Internet with over 3.5 million monthly users and over 500,000
newsletter subscriptions. As CEO, he led a team which developed partnerships
with media companies like Microsoft, NBC and CNN and with political entities
like the AFL-CIO, US Chamber of Commerce and both the Democrat and Republican
parties. The Company received financing from many of the top venture capitalists
including Charles River Ventures, Sigma Partners and Bessemer Venture Partners.
Prior to forming Voter.com, Dangel worked in
early-stage venture capital with Hambros Advanced Technology Trust in London and
the Aurora Funds in North Carolina. In addition, Dangel worked for the Russian
Technology Fund in St. Petersburg, Russia, The Ukraine Fund, in Kiev Ukraine. In
sum, Dangel has evaluated hundreds of business plans and worked with dozens of
portfolio management teams. He has worked in venture capital on 3 continents.
Dangel also has worked frequently in politic
and public institutions including the United States Treasury Department, Senator
Edward Kennedy, Senator Joseph Biden and Tsongas for President. He
has been a speaker at the World Economic Forum in Washington, the Massachusetts
delegation to the Democratic convention and at several conferences on politics
and democracy online. He has appeared on several television and radio programs
and has been quoted in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles.
Dangel is a graduate of Duke University with
a degree in Political Philosophy.
PETER ELBOW
Peter Elbow is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst--where he directed the Writing Program.
He taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Franconia College, Evergreen State
College, and State University of New York, Stony Brook--where he also directed the Writing Program.
Elbow has had a longstanding interest in voice as it relates to writing,
identity, and power, and his revolutionary book Writing without Teachers
has influenced a whole generation of writers with its democratizing emphasis on
helping people work on writing on their own and with others outside of
educational institutions. In addition to Writing without Teachers,
his books include Oppositions in Chaucer;
Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process; Embracing Contraries:
Explorations in Learning and Teaching; What is English?; and most recently,
Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching
Writing. His textbook with Pat Belanoff, A Community of Writers, is in its
third edition. Elbow edited Landmark Essays on Voice and Writing and
co-edited Nothing Begins with N: New Explorations of Freewriting and Writing
to Learn: Strategies for Assigning and Responding to Writing in the Disciplines.
Elbow is the author of numerous essays and has given talks and workshops at many colleges and universities.
He has served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language
Association and the Executive Committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication.
Elbow holds degrees from Williams College, Oxford University, and Brandeis University.
PAUL LAUTER
Paul Lauter is the Allan K. and Gwendolyn Miles Smith Professor of Literature at Trinity
College in Connecticut. Much of Lauter's work has centered on how literary canons are constructed--and changed. His book
Canons and Contexts examines the history of the canon of American literature as well as changes
in it generated primarily by ethnic and feminist studies. The Heath Anthology of American
Literature, for which Lauter is general editor, represents a successful effort to put canon change into practice.
Earlier in his career, Lauter was active in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war
movements; he worked for a number of social cause organizations and co-authored a book about the 1960s,
The Conspiracy of the Young. His most recent book, From Walden Pond to Jurassic Park--The Cultural Work of
American Studies traces the development of American Studies as a discipline and a form of political discourse in the United States and overseas.
Lauter served as president of the American Studies Association (USA) and has spoken
and consulted at universities in almost every state and in 25 countries. Other recent projects include a co-edited collection called
Literature, Class, and Culture, and a volume of Thoreau's writings for the New Riverside
Series, of which he is general editor. Lauter received his B.A. from New York University (Washington Square College), his M.A. from Indiana
University School of Letters, and his Ph.D. from Yale University.
DON McLAGAN
Don McLagan is an information industry entrepreneur. Currently, Don is Chairman of the Board of Executive Advisors for Outsell Inc., and is an executive advisor for Informio Inc. Outsell is a leading information industry research and advisory firm. Informio is a leader is voice Web infrastructure. Don has been an innovator of business information services for more than thirty years. Most recently, Don was founder, Chairman and CEO of NewsEdge Corporation (1988-2000). Previously, he was Vice President and General Manager of the Information Services Division of Lotus Development Corporation (1985-1988); he was a founding employee and Executive Vice President of Data Resources, Inc. (1969-1984); he started the Advanced Computer Techniques Group within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Comptroller (1967-69). Don has both B.S. (1964) and B.S.M.E. (1965) degrees from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and an MBA from Harvard Business School (1967).
BEN TODD
Benjamin Samuel Todd explores ways in which information technology can help shape disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities. Currently, Ben is director of the Trinity College Smart Neighborhood initiative (http://www.hartnet.org)-- a comprehensive five year project funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that aims to break down the digital divide between Trinity College and its neighbors. Since graduating from Trinity College four years ago in 1997, Benjamin has worked with community residents, activists, businesspeople and leaders on a wide range of information technology issues including internet connectivity, computer training and the creation of the Trinfo.Cafe (http://www.trinfocafe.com/) that houses the project's computer lab, computer recycling center, and staff.